But what I run day to day on my main machine is Debian. Right now that means Wheezy, currently the Testing distribution, which I upgraded my then-Stable Squeeze desktop to last year.

Wherever I end up in the world of operating systems, I’ll always have Debian running somewhere (though currently that’s almost everywhere).

Sure, Debian is extremely conservative. However, Debian’s respect of upstream means that new technologies will make their way into the distribution. That can take awhile. The benefit is that most of the time you don’t get alpha- or beta-quality software in the Stable or Testing distributions. And when I absolutely, positively need a newer package, I can get it from upstream. Just about everything you need is in a .deb somewhere. I even have the Netflix Desktop running on a scary combination of Wine, Silverlight, 32-bit libraries and duct tape from an Ubuntu PPA. In Debian. (And there’s always Debian Sid for those living on the edge.)

Not having Netflix streaming on the desktop? That was one of the “stoppers” that prompted me to keep a small Windows partition on my main laptop. Now I have it. In Linux. In Debian, for the love of all things sacred.

I need to use Citrix. The package is lousy. I had to hand-patch a many-thousand-line config file. (Gotta find my notes and write that one up). That’s Citrix’s poor stewarship of their own .deb package. But I got it working. Again, in Debian.

I don’t stick with the Debian Project because it’s run by volunteers and isn’t controlled by a single company. That’s just sweet, sweet gravy on top of an operating system that’s great for servers, desktops and laptops. It always runs fast. It’s got 30,000+ packages in repositories mirrored all over the world. It’s developers care about quality. They care about things not breaking.

Debian cares about upstream. It packages the best. And the rest.

Many other distributions stand on the shoulders of a single giant — Debian. That’s what they build on.

But Debian stands on the shoulders of giants as well: The Linux kernel. The GNU tools (everything from the GCC compiler to the shell and beyond). Countless utilities that companies like Red Hat have created and polished over the years.

For instance, NetworkManager went from buggy annoyance to rock solid over the past few years. I couldn’t get along without it.

And then there are the desktop environments: GNOME, KDE, Xfce, LXDE. They come from upstream. And they’re all in Debian. I’m sure I missed many, and I haven’t mentioned window managers like Fluxbox, Openbox and Fvwm.

I’m not asking you to dump the distribution you love for Debian. I’m just telling you that it’s there. I don’t do installations very often these days, but there was a period of time when I’d do a few every week. I’ve probably installed Debian 50 to 100 times over the years. But my current system has been in place since late 2010. The way you get comfortable with any installation procedure in any Linux or BSD (or even Windows or Mac) system is to do lots of installations.

I don’t recommend you get a Debian disc, do a single install on what’s going to be your main system and live with that install forever. That doesn’t work for me with Ubuntu, Fedora (or Windows or Mac) either. I need a few (or more) installs in order to experiment with the installation and setup to get it the way I want it. Sometimes the hardware doesn’t abide. I’ll switch things up. For me that usually means going back to Debian. For you it could be something else.

Debian is solid. There’s a lot of help out there. It’s not all grumbly RTFM neckbeards. It helps if you do RTFM, and you are encouraged to do that, but you will find help out there. My favorite place for this is the debian-user mailing list. And not by coincidence, much of the Ubuntu help in the form of forum and blog posts applies directly to Debian. As always, the Arch wiki and forums are a great source for all Linux users.

I’ve installed and run just about everything. Yes, that includes Slackware. But Debian is what I always fall back on. I can count on Debian and its volunteers. I can get work done. I can enjoy things like video and music without trouble. No corporation is in control of my desktop experience. My “weakest” machines can run it, as do my strongest.

I want you to use what’s right for you. I’m just letting you know that for the past four or so years, Debian has been right for me.

About Steven Rosenberg

Agreed. Debian is really the ONLY distro out there that put so much time and energy into providing quality packages thoroughly tested and patched to increase stability. The result is a Rock Solid Distro that may contain older packages… but you can’t have it both ways… (new and stable) However using the Debian testing branch is a happy medium and still provides a far more stable experience than the average distro. More eyes = better quality… Debian has the biggest developer community hands down. I can say all this without bias… I use ArchLinux because I do not require a rock solid system and prefer the bleeding edge route but I acknowledge that Debian is by far the best Production quality system out there.http://www.youtube.com/Linux4UnMe

http://stevenrosenberg.net/blog Steven Rosenberg

Debian packages can be old. Even Sid is “conservative” compared to things like Arch in terms of the newness of packages.

What I do is stick with Debian — even Stable — for the most part and then draw on other repositories or .deb packages for the few things that I really want to be extremely fresh. I did that with the OpenShot video editor for awhile, though now I’m using what’s in Wheezy.

Wayne

I gotta agree that we use what we feel comfortable with. I use PCLOS with KDE simply because it WORKS for me. I tried Debian a couple of months ago, and I was gonna have to learn more about the whole linux package that I wanted to. I’m 80 YO and it’s time for me just to enjoy life.

http://stevenrosenberg.net/blog Steven Rosenberg

I agree. If you’re comfortable with what you are using now, and there’s no compelling reason to change, stick with it.

Bob_Robert

That’s the most important thing, use what works for you.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=689444745 Alan McAlexander

Great article. I run Linux Mint on my laptop and desktop due to the latest packeges, but all my servers except my PBX run on top of Debian – email, web server, OTRS, Proxmox VE, just to name a few. I have had 0 issues with Debian and will stick with it.

http://www.facebook.com/microlinux Kiki Novak

If Slackware didn’t exist, I’d happily use Debian or CentOS. The three most solid distros out there. Slackware remains my favourite for a host of reasons: great community, KISS approach, robustness, flexibility, release and support policy, and with all that, it’s not plagued by obsolescence problems.

http://stevenrosenberg.net/blog Steven Rosenberg

Slackware is very solid, indeed. I might go back one day. I like the whole out-of-the-box KDE-Xfce installation. It would all hinge on how I got along with Slackbuilds. My last try didn’t go well, but maybe I could figure it out this time.

http://www.facebook.com/microlinux Kiki Novak

I’m currently busy translating my own Software Management HOWTO for Slackware from french into english. Check out docs.slackware.com.

jonc

Used Slackware for several years back in the day. Dabbled with Debian around release 3.0. Most recently had a long-term meaningful relationship with CentOS, augmented by the Stella guy’s excellent repo.

But, font rendering quality is critical for me, and one Java SWT app (RSSOwl) refused to look as good as I made everything else look in CentOS. And, there aren’t any other good RSS options for CentOS. So, I’ve been distro hopping. On Mint 14 Cinnamon today. Looks just great, but it’s not quite as snappy as CentOS.

I’ve started collecting Debian Sid howto’s, thinking I could work in the Ubuntu font patches…

Bob_Robert

First installed Debian in 1995, and like you I always come back to it.

I must disagree about having to be adventurous to run Sid. I’ve been installing directly into Sid for 15 years, when needed, and found that the “rolling release” style works in Sid very well. The only times I’ve had problems was during major architecture changes, such as the Xfree86 to Xorg, and libc6 transitions. The Debian-User mailing list was very good for knowing problems were coming, and the answer was to simply stop updating until the instabilities had been resolved.

It seems to me that people are expecting Unstable to be like Experimental. It’s not. The reason that Debian does not advertise Experimental is because the packages in Experimental really don’t work. It’s the Alpha-testing area, while Sid is the Beta-testing. And it’s a good beta.

Anyone who is Linux-competent enough to install Sid, can run Sid. It has honestly been years since I had to do any more to have everything working in Sid than I would be doing in Stable anyway, such as adding the Debian Multimedia repository. The Herculean efforts of the Debian Developers cannot be overstated, I respect them greatly. If I’d known when I started with Linux just how important these things would be, I would have become a Debian developer myself. 20/20 hindsight.

And Steven, your list of Desktop Environments is sorely lacking! Remember olvwm? It’s in Sid, and you can party like it’s 1992! I did a quick review of Debian 6 with the variety of Desktops as its focus, which you and your readers will enjoy:

I use Debian at home for two machines – one home server (which drives my Squeezebox) and my eMac. For the former, it was a natural choice; Debian offers excellent flexibility for servers, and I’ve just about fallen in love with it server-side. For the latter, Debian’s PowerPC support is incredible; after struggling for several weeks with getting distro after distro to run on that machine, Debian installed successfully right away.

While I still prefer Mint and Slackware for my day-to-day machines (particularly for gaming rigs, in light of Steam for Linux), Debian remains my go-to for a lot of scenarios.

BernardoVerda

Debian is only “hard” if you are installing proprietary drivers for graphics or wifi, or other “non-free” firmware, codecs and similar software. Since Debian was my very first Linux distro (back when they still had only the text installer) that doesn’t scare me (and open graphics drivers suit my needs, anyways).

But I was expecting difficulties (a.k.a. a [i]learning curve[/i]), and so was willing to read the installation guide, first. Most newbies today are scared off by that; but the real cause of the “tough” reputation is the people who already “know computers” and can’t imagine that they just might meed to learn a few new things, to install and set-up a “modern” operating system other than Windows.

Wolfgang Lonien

Good article Steven. When I was at that point (that I realized how much easier it made my life, and how much I depended on Debian) I thought of ways to give back.

So I joined the community, helped out with booths at events like Linuxtag, the Systems fair in Munich, or FOSDEM (Free and Open Source Developers’ European Meeting) in Brussels.

I’ve met lots of developers during that time, which was a great experience.